How Secure Mac Makes Money

How Secure Mac Makes Money

Started in 1999, this blog is dedicated to the very niche topic of how to keep your Mac secure. I just love this idea, because think about it…

Selling security advice is selling fear AND who has a higher propensity to spend money on stuff, let alone stuff that will protect their precious baby, than Mac users!! (I’m typing this on a Mac, so I speak from the standpoint too).

The revenue model for this site is simple; affiliate marketing by reviewing products, plus some direct advertising. Simple and effective.

This review site model is something I recommend beginners pursue. If you know a niche really well, have used dozens of products in it and can write a good 50,000 words of free advice, plus 500-1000 words per review, then you will most likely emerge with a great money making site.

The important thing is to make sure that the niche you choose has suppliers who have affiliate schemes setup already. So think software providers, not so much removalists, for example. You can always convince suppliers to setup an affiliate program, but it’s obviously a lot more work.

Also, watch out for other problems specific to a certain niche.

Take the Mac/Apple niche. I would never bother doing a reviews site on something like Apple Apps, because the problem is people research apps online, but then go to their iOS device to buy the app. ie there is no hyperlink clicked, and thus no affiliate commission earned. You can of course still earn money with a site like this by doing direct advertising and paid-for reviews, but you’re definitely missing out.

One last note on Secure Mac. I think it’s important to point out a lot of it’s success comes from the fact that it has been around forever and there is so much content on it, and no doubt a lot of backlinks to it. The point I want to highlight here is that you can only succeed with reviews sites if you put in a lot of work, eg in-depth original reviews etc, and get the link love and Google respect happening.